staged to sell ~ styled to perfection

All posts tagged: family room

Sometimes a room is just hard to finish. You’ve got paint on the walls, treatments on the windows, the important pieces of furniture in place, but you’re just not quite there yet. You run out of the time, ideas and energy needed for taking things from just “fine” to “fantastic”. This is a predicament many of our clients face. It was the case for a super sweet and very busy family we worked with recently. They had a wonderful space for a family room. Great cathedral ceilings, wood floors, a fireplace, nice blinds on the windows and the perfect leather sofa. But the room needed “finishing” and we were so happy to be able to help. Here’s a look at the room before: They were close – 75% of the way there. This room just needed life on the walls, accessories and a few small pieces of furniture to look pulled together and live up to it’s real potential. Here’s the finished family room. Hello fantastic! The rug and coffee table were updated with fresh, …

Spring is really and truly finally here! Open the windows, air out the house, let the spring cleaning begin. And while you’re opening, airing and cleaning, don’t overlook your fireplace. I don’t know about yours, but mine worked a lot of overtime this winter. It looks something like this at the moment. It is dirty, tired and smelly. This is not very nice to come home to. And since many of us have fireplaces in the rooms we spend the most time in, why not make them pretty for spring and summer? First, start with a really good cleaning. There are some instruction to get you going here. This is not a fun job, but you will be so very happy that you did and you will no longer be greeted by that sooty smell. Now that it’s clean, let’s turn that black hole into something a little more appealing. The first thing that comes to mind is a beautiful green plant. Ferns are always pretty and will bring a wonderful, spring-like feeling into any space. Other …

Winter doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon, so how about one last hurrah for the fireplace. Fireplaces are important. Not that we have to rely on them so much for heat these days, but because they can be a beautiful focal point in a room when they are well accessorized. Accessorizing the mantel can be a real challenge. It’s a space where you want just enough, but not too much. Uncluttered but not boring. Symmetry, but sometimes maybe not. Less is most definitely more, but if your mantel looks like this, we’ve got some work to do. And please don’t do this either. This one is not terrible. But not great either. Don’t your eyes crave something substantial in that space over the mantle? Something to keep the fireplace from being overshadowed by the height of the bookcases. Some ideas for what you might do with your own fireplace… Minimalism. It works really well, especially when you have no mantel like these fireplaces. Don’t hold back, go big and bold! How perfect is …

After going on and on about beige recently in this post, I thought maybe it was time for a little chat about color. Have you heard about the color of the year, Pantone’s “Radiant Orchid”? And it is really quite radiant! Not for wallflowers. This bold shade of purple really stands out. Could you picture a whole room full? How about a piece of furniture? Personally, if nothing else I could definitely live with this – and love it! If you’re not familiar with Pantone, they do make paint, but they are also know as the global authority on color. Their ‘color of the year’ selection is used by many consumer manufacturing companies to guide their designs for future products. So be on the lookout for “Radiant Orchid”. I’m starting to notice it all over the place! Sherwin Williams has their own color of the year called “Exclusive Plum”. Still in the purple family, but a bit more sophisticated, lots more gray. It makes quite a statement in this space. And plum is lovely here …

Family rooms see a lot of action – second only to the kitchen in most homes for time spent hanging out. We helped a wonderful and very sweet family make their family room a much more pleasant place to be and I’m really excited share the results with you. This family room is quite long and narrow with only one solid wall. We see this layout often and it has it’s challenges. It also has a fireplace, which is fantastic, however in many homes having a fireplace in the family room becomes a battle of the focal points. TV vs. fireplace. In their previous arrangement, the TV and fireplace had been on one wall, competing for attention with each other. Also our clients wanted more seating, which seemed impossible with the current arrangement. Here’s the before: And here is the after… Quite a transformation, don’t you think? We normally wouldn’t want to put the sofa in front of windows – one of those “rules” of design. However, this space called for some rule …

Have you checked the expiration date on your window treatments lately? If you would use the words “swag”, “jabot” or “balloon” to describe them, it’s probably time for them to go. Do they look anything like this: or this: or this: Did you move in and put some of these “temporary” shades on your windows for privacy and never get around to replacing them? Do you have mini blinds that look like this? Or vertical blinds that look like this? If so, then you are in need of new window treatments if you want to keep your home looking fresh and up to date. This is a really tough issue for a lot of people. If you had draperies custom made for your windows you may have spent thousands of dollars. The thought of taking them down is pretty painful. But this is one of those things that can really make your home look dated and worn. The good news is that it doesn’t have to cost thousands to replace old with new. Here are …